Nagpur: The 2019 summer board exam season kicks off from Thursday with state board’s Std XII (HSC) being the first off the block. A total of 1.66 lakh students, which includes 24 transgenders, will appear for the exam across six districts of Nagpur division.Though transgender students have appeared in previous years as well, it is only this year that the board has officially shared statistics to media.Ravikant Deshpande, secretary of Nagpur divisional board, said, the facility of adding an extra column for gender was started last year. “Students marked themselves as transgender even last year. Before that, such students would simply register as male or female, but now the change in format has enabled them to mark themselves distinctively,” he said.Gadchiroli district has the highest number of transgender students registered at seven, with Bhandara and Wardha having the least at just one each.The mandatory English subject paper is always a tough one for many students and with changes to the curriculum and exam pattern, it can be very challenging. Of the total 1.66 lakh students appearing in the division, Nagpur has the highest candidates registered at 64,919. The lowest number of candidates seen is 13,690 in Gadchiroli. The gender ratio between boys and girls is not extremely lopsided either, with 86,564 boys and 79,654 girls registering for the exam. What is heartening to see is that the gender gap is not too wide even in the less developed districts of Nagpur division. Gondia had 10,274 girls registered compared to 10,576 boys. Bhandara has 9,116 girls registered compared to 9,410 boys.Students opting for science and arts were almost neck and neck with a huge disparity seen in numbers opting for commerce. Total 69,926 are appearing for science stream while 65,474 are registered for arts stream. Commerce lags far behind with only 22,635 students.Varsha Puniyani, who teaches commerce at Hislop College, said, there are a number of factors that result in this. “The number of seats available for science and arts in rural junior colleges are comparatively high. Also commerce, along with Maths, was earlier considered as an eligibility for pursuing architecture but now it has been discontinued. This change led to students opting for science to be on the safer side,” said Puniyani.District...........Exam Centres....Science.................Arts.................Commerce.................MCVCBhandara.................61.................7856......................9187.................942..............................542Chandrapur.............80.................11157.................14754.................2212..............................1762Nagpur......................155...............29284.................16078.................15885..............................3672Wardha.......................51.................6819.....................7863.................2353..............................1326Gadchiroli.................48.................4845....................8123.................265....................................457Gondiya........................73.................9965...................9469.................978....................................441Total.............................468.................69926.................65474.............22635..............................8200Boys..........Girls........Transgender.........Total9410...........9116...................1..........1852715747.........14136.................2...........2988533932..........30984................3...........649199700.............8660.................1...........183617199.............6484.................7...........1369010576...........10274...............3............20853TOTAL86564..........79654..............17............166235

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